It was almost two years ago now when Alexa’s mom knew something was wrong. At the time, Alexa was almost 7.

Alexa Kirkwood, cancer fighter. (Courtesy photo)

“She has always been a healthy child,” says Amy Kirkwood, “But one night, her stomach hurt. It was strange, because she was having a sleepover and she loves sleepovers — but she wanted her friend to go home. After we brought her friend home, I thought, ‘She’ll sleep it off, she’ll be fine.’ The next day, though, she was still in pain.”

Kirkwood took her daughter to the emergency room of St. John’s Hospital in Maplewood.

“They did an ultrasound,” she says. “The ER doctor said, ‘I’ve talked to a doctor at Children’s in Minneapolis. You can go there, they are waiting for you.”

Alexa’s mom protested.

“Can we go to the St. Paul one?” she remembers asking. “I don’t like driving in Minneapolis.”

The doctor’s reply surprised her.

“I can call an ambulance.”

Like any sensible Minnesota mother, Kirkwood shook her head.

“I can just use my GPS,” she said. She remembers thinking: “Let’s not be dramatic here. We’re not taking an ambulance.”

Cancer survivor Alexa “Lexi” Kirkwood, 8, of Oakdale, has been selected through TCF Bank and Make-A-Wish Minnesota to be the TCF Bank Kickoff Kid for the Minnesosta Gophers’ Homecoming football game at TCF Bank Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2016. (Courtesy photo)

As she prepared to get her daughter to Children’s Hospital and Clinics in Minneapolis, a glance at the medical paperwork revealed more about the situation: “It said there was a mass on her kidney,” Kirkwood says. “I thought, ‘OK, it’s probably a cyst.’ I Googled it, of course. I saw something about a tumor, but that it only happens to 500 kids a year in the U.S. So I thought, ‘Obviously, it’s not that, if only 500 kids get it.’ ”

But when they got to Children’s …

“We check in, we go up to the seventh floor, get off the elevator and there’s a sign that says ‘Oncology Clinic,’ ” Kirkwood says. “I thought, ‘Oncology’? Doesn’t that mean cancer?’ I thought, ‘OK, they’re being a little dramatic.’ ”

“I questioned the oncologist about the diagnosis, I freaked out for awhile in the parking lot, I texted my mom, who was supposed to leave for Mexico the next day, and I broke the news to everyone on Facebook — I can’t believe I did that, but I just couldn’t bear the thought of telling people over and over,” she says. “People thought my account had been hacked.”

Of course they did — this was Alexa. Just like her mom, she doesn’t see the need for unnecessary fussing.

“She has always been one who, if she has the flu or a cold, she will not acknowledge it,” Kirkwood says. “You have to force her to rest. She doesn’t want to miss out.”

It was the same with cancer, which was explained to her by a Child Life specialist while her mom and her dad, Anthony Kirkwood, were by her side.

“It didn’t mean anything to her,” Kirkwood says. “To her, ‘cancer’ was the same as a cold. The only thing she said was that she didn’t want me to tell my mom and dad. I guess she thought we’d keep it on the down low.”

But they needed people’s love and support — especially from Grandma and Grandpa. And it was quite a battle: chemo, surgery, radiation. After all that, the family celebrated in February with a trip to Disney World, thanks to Make-A-Wish Minnesota. And although Alexa is excited about being the kicker this Saturday — she loves football — she is also helping her mom not be dramatic about what they’ve been through.

“She told me that she wants to write a children’s book,” Kirkwood says. “I said, ‘Why don’t you write a book for other kids who’ve been diagnosed with cancer, about what they can expect, what treatment is like?’ She told me that she’s kind of over the whole cancer thing, she said she has moved on … and she said that it’s time that I move on from it, too.”

Good advice, Alexa, for all of us … let’s leave yesterday behind, live for today and enjoy a little football.

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